Comments on: Honda Needs a Tune-Up

By: Trevor Cox

Trevor Cox — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:51:49 +0000

This is a great post and I’ve just used it on Sonic Wonders, my new website about Sound Tourism.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 07:25:15 +0000

that was really interesting. when i first saw the commercial i had no idea what melody they were trying to play with the car… it sounded like they just made it up

By: Kenton

Kenton — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:34:43 +0000

I hope the congratulations aren’t getting old — I just wanted to echo the same sentiments expressed above. I live in Canada and just started seeing this ad online thanks to a proxy server that allows me to watch American programs. It took two listens for me to get fed up and track this down on Google.

I still can’t believe the final ad in the series where the engineers high-five after listening to a clearly failed attempt — even worse when you consider they were hearing the “pre-re-tuned” version in the car as they congratulated each other. But I’m sure they took a gamble that the vast majority of people wouldn’t notice, and judging by the lack of search results on Google, I’d say they gambled right.

Either way, your time on this was appreciated. It’s always nice to know your part of a crowd, even if it is small. ;)

By: William

William — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:45:14 +0000

Brilliant analysis. Win for David, his think-outside-the-box dad, and the world at large. I really enjoyed the musical comparisons. I don’t know anything about notes or stuff like that, but I can certainly appreciate a good and scientific presentation.

Thank you.

By: Gooberlicious

Gooberlicious — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 15:29:42 +0000

As a Lancaster resident, I had to try it. It was in the Western part of the Antelope Valley (1 hr north of LA in the high desert) on Avenue K between 60th and 70th Streets West. So I drive over the grooves and found that I couldn’t make head or tail of what it was! I’m sort of a musician (been piano-ing for 31 years) and thought, “OK, cool, now what was that?” Due to some cranky residents in the area and nut-job drivers, they have since removed the grooves and moved them to Avenue G between 30th and 50th Streets West, which is conventiently on my way home from work. I decided to drive the speed limit (55) and try it again and again. The new grooves sound even WORSE! I thought maybe it was my speed understanding frequency changes with speed in this case. Being the good enginerd that I am, I decided to experiment with differing speeds, at 1 mph increments. To no avail. A colleague of mine sent me this link and now I have my answer. It’s all mucked up!!!!

By: davidsd

davidsd — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:40:54 +0000

Silverx10, thank you for that. I had a good time writing this article, and obviously a few people enjoyed reading it… so I disagree. And I don’t really care at all whether Honda sells more or fewer cars as a result of their commercial. I actually like the civic a lot — my parents have had one for over a decade, and it’s a great car.

By: silverx10

silverx10 — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 03:31:29 +0000

…It’s a car commercial. They use them to sell cars. All your effort is for naught.

By: davidsd

davidsd — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 22:28:04 +0000

@Nosmo, That's a good idea -- they definitely could have used something like that during the editing process. They certainly made sure each pitch in the commercial is a note on the piano (as opposed to the way it really sounds, which has funny microtones you can't play on a keyboard). But I'm not sure they always modified the pitch to the nearest note. For example, at the end, the honda commercial goes B♭-D-B♭, but I think the nearest notes would be A-C-A. Sounds like they were being a little more liberal with the pitch doctoring. @Elliott, very interesting! I do remember reading something about asphalt being a difficult "medium" in hot climates. That's cool that Tim figured out a solution. I wonder if the city of Lancaster (which apparently has rebuilt the William Tell road as a tourist attraction) is aware of this. Everyone, thanks for the kind words! I totally agree that it's ridiculous that Honda is high-fiving themselves on every channel for such an obvious fail. It really doesn't sound anything like William Tell. I like Zach's original thought that Honda's engineers were just a bunch of indie rock lovers :). PJ, I hope this writeup provides some form of justice. Boy, does Honda deserve it.

By: Elliott

Elliott — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 21:03:22 +0000

David — In the early 90’s Tim Sprunger who worked at Walt Disney World at the time, built a musical road as a demo project that Disney never picked up on. He’s an artist/musician and went through all the same calculations you list above. His road played Zip-py-do-da of course and has a video of the testing. His design used raised ridges made of a special aggregate and epoxy formula. He found, unless the grooves were made in concrete the summer Florida heat would soften the asphalt and almost erase the grooves in one summer. Tim lives Kissimmee FL

By: PJ

PJ — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 06:51:21 +0000

Thank you! I needed to find some meaning or justice behind the trashing of the William Tell melody. If they didn’t get this right, what does this say about their newest cars?